Wizzer's World

In the hopes of getting beyond all that is going on I present to you the “Where did Wizzer come from?” Post. I figure that once I post all of these questions and answer posts, I may actually compile them all into a FAQ and post it. Either that or I will write a book. You know that CafePress will actually publish books? You can send them a document and cover design and they will publish and sell as needed books. How cool is that? But anyways, I digress.

I have heard just about every joke known to man about the name Wizzer. From piss jokes, to wiener jokes I hear them all. The real story goes back to when I was about 15 years old and my brother introduced me to a game called Shadowrun. Shadowrun is a role playing game based in a futuristic world of post apocalyptic goodness. It’s a very cool game and I really got into it at the time. Well, in Shadowrun there is a type of character called a “Decker.” A Decker is a hacker of sorts, he plugs the computer into his head and maneuvers around the “Matrix” to manipulate data. (Shadowrun came out long before the movie “Matrix”) Another aspect of the game is a surplus of cybernetics. So here I thought that it would be fun to take a Decker and pump him full of speed enhancing cybernetics. His mind would be tweaked out to run as fast as possible and so would his body. But what to call him? “Speedster?” “Fastman?” Well, being an avid comic reader I turn to my pulp hero’s to see what names I can dredge from their colorful world. There is always The Flash, Superman, and Capt. Marvel. Those are all overdone and don’t have near the right sound. Then I came across a golden age wonder called Whizzer. He could run really fast, and was not very well known. Not wanting to directly copy, I dropped the “H” and Wizzer was born. I played avidly for quite a few years, and I still have some of the books.

Around the age of 17 I received my first real computer. It was a true POS, with a 286 processor and an internal 1200 baud modem. This was just enough to get me online into some of the local BBS’s. Most of you know that in order to establish an online presence you need a handle. Since I had been playing the character Wizzer for so long, I adopted that as my online Identity. I was a BBS addict logging into boards by the name of Phosphor and Inferno. I made many friends while on these systems. I attended live gatherings and a number of parties. I even survived some of the jokes that spawned from the “Dress as your Handle” Parties. (a 6 pack of Jolt cola as well as about 3 No-Doze at the same time solved that conundrum) Well, BBS’s grew into my first internet account with a company called Netcom (I think they were eventually bought out by EarthLink). This was a UNIX shell account and was entirely text based. I had access to the web via a server side program called lynx. I started logging into IRC Channels on Undernet, and posting to Newsgroups. (I am sorry to admit that I was once a poster to Alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die, Sorry Wil!)

When I joined the Military I took sort of a Hiatus from computing until I arrived in Okinawa and bought me a Super fast Pentium (not Pentium II or III just the regular old P1) Of course I had to continue with the only online nomenclature I knew. And that would carry me into the here and now. It used to be when I would sign up for a new website or ISP that I could use Wizzer as a name and it would not be taken, but alas the times have caught up with me and there are a number of Impostors out there, and I am sure they came up with the name on their own, much like I did. I guess it’s just hard when you have used a handle for so long not to be bitter when you find it’s taken by someone else.

So now you know, and knowing is Half the battle.